Michael McGarrity - The Judas judge

"We'll never know," Kerney said.

"But if that were the case, I would have had a hard time walking away from such an opportunity."

She flushed, her eyes brightened, and a small smile crossed her lips. She extended her hand and Kerney shook it, said good-bye, and walked her to the door.

He waited a few minutes before grabbing his bags and heading to the parking lot. Isabel's life was far different from his own, and he respected her decisions, her traditions, and her heritage. He had unwittingly become a father, and feeling bad about the situation wouldn't change anything. Maybe it was time to get out of his Clayton funk.

Kerney smiled as he thought about Isabel, Sara, Erma Fergurson, his mother, and one or two other women who'd been important to him throughout the years. Each was fiercely independent, smart as a whip, and an extraordinarily interesting person in her own unique way.

The smile vanished when he reached his unit. Someone had scrawled COP KILLER, in paint on the windshield, in broad daylight.

The lot was almost empty of cars, and there were no people around.

Careful not to touch anything outside the vehicle except the door latch, he unlocked it and made radio contact with Agent Duran.

"Come take a look at my unit," he said. "I'm at the motel."

"I'll be there in a few, Chief. Is the damage bad?"

"No damage, just the words "Cop Killer' painted on the windshield."

It took the better part of an hour for Duran to dust for prints, lift some paint samples, and take photographs. As he worked, Kerney questioned him about his investigation and learned there were no suspects and no leads.

"But I'm thinking now that maybe it's somebody close by," Duran said.

"Or a motel employee. This happened in broad daylight, which means that whoever did it saw you drive up."

"Nobody followed me," Kerney said.

"I'm gonna canvas the neighborhood as soon as I finish here," Robert said.

After scraping off the paint and cleaning the windshield, Kerney fired up the unit and rolled onto the street, thinking that whoever was sending him a message needed to be taken very seriously.

Traffic along the highway from Ruidoso to Roswell was light. Kerney parked near the mile-marker post where Arthur Langsford had been killed by a hit-and-run driver and studied the accident investigation report.

The incident had occurred just inside the Chaves County line in low foothills that once defined the edge of a shallow inland sea. The long flowing mountains beyond looked serene and inviting. But in the high country away from the villages, towns, and settlements there were narrow zigzag canyons, deep unbroken cliff walls, and sharp elbow passages that could disorient the unsuspecting and the unprepared.

Kerney walked on the shoulder of the road thinking he needed to find out from the highway department if any changes or alterations to the right of way had occurred since the accident. He checked the photographs in the accident report and eyed the bend in the road where Arthur Langsford had been hit head-on. It wasn't a blind curve by any means. Supposedly a road hazard had caused the driver to swerve into Langsford's lane, and a setting sun had impaired the driver's vision.

He wondered how, without any witnesses, the now-retired sheriff's deputy had ascertained his facts.

Motor vehicle collision analysis wasn't one of Kerney's special interests or skills, and it had been years since he'd handled a traffic accident. He consulted the deputy's field sketch and located the approximate spot in the road where skid marks showed the driver had braked and swerved into the opposite lane. Why had the driver veered across the center line in a no-passing zone when the most typical reaction would've been to steer away from any oncoming traffic?

The report noted that three empty cardboard boxes, each twenty by eighteen inches, had been found on the shoulder of the road approximately twenty feet beyond the point where the skid marks began.

The deputy had assumed the boxes had been in the road prior to impact, but there was no substantiation of that finding. Further, he'd concluded that inattention had caused the driver to swerve quickly to avoid the apparent hazard.

Looking down the highway from the impact point, Kerney wondered how inattentive the driver had been. Even with a low, setting sun, the obstacles should have been visible in time for the driver to slow and approach with caution.

The report of conditions on the day of the accident indicated that the road was dry, traffic was light, and the weather was clear. No debris or paint particles from the vehicle had been found at the scene, either on the road or-according to the forensic analysis-embedded in Arthur Langsford's flesh, bicycle, or clothing.

Kerney decided he needed to find and talk to the retired deputy who handled the call, and locate an expert to reconstruct the accident.

In a traditional sense, Midway couldn't be called a village or a settlement. Just south of Roswell, close to a newly expanded four-lane highway built to carry radioactive shipments to the Underground Waste Isolation Pilot Project eighty miles down the road, Midway consisted of a sprinkling of aging mobile homes and houses on flat, dirt-packed acre-size lots. The absence of lawns and trees, the presence of half-finished or abandoned attempts by residents to build sheds, decks, and carports, and the rundown condition of the neighborhood generally gave it a feeling of depleted energy.

Delvin Waxman, the retired deputy, lived in a trailer that looked no better or worse than any others. He was bent over the engine compartment of an old black-and-white state police cruiser that had been stripped of all decals and equipment and sold at auction. He raised his head when Kerney drove up, wiped his hands on a rag, and approached the unit. He had a small head, an arrow face, and a slightly off-center nose. From the lines and wear on his face, he looked to be pushing sixty.

Kerney showed his shield and introduced himself. "What can I do for you?" Waxman asked.

"Tell me about Arthur Langsford's death."

"I remember that case. It would be hard to forget, seeing that the victim was a judge's son and all." Waxman stuffed the rag in a back pocket and glanced at the file in Kerney's hand. "You've read my report?"

"I have."

"Then there's not much to tell. It's all there."

"How long did it take you to get to the accident?"

"About twenty minutes. State police were tied up at another collision and I was the only unit available."

"Was it dark when you arrived?" Kerney asked.

"Just about."

"Then how did you know the sky was clear and the sun was setting at the time of the incident?"

"Witness report. A driver traveling east out of the mountains was first on the scene. He stopped and directed traffic until I got there. Another driver drove to a gas station outside of town and called it in."

"Did you inspect the cardboard boxes?"

"I gave them a look. They weren't crushed or run over, if that's what you're asking."

"You assumed the boxes were originally in the road."

Waxman nodded. "Probably dropped out of the back of a pickup truck hauling trash."

"Any garbage, newspaper or packing material in the boxes?"

"They were empty."

"Any lettering on them?"

"Just the manufacturer's name. They were plain brown boxes, like the kind used by moving companies."

"Did you preserve the boxes as evidence?"

"I saw no reason to."

"How long was it from the time Langsford got hit to the time the first driver stopped?"

"I'd say no more than five minutes. The driver told me Langsford was bleeding freely from the head when he got there."

"Was Langsford alive when the driver arrived?"

"The guy didn't know," Waxman said. "All he told me was the bicyclist looked dead and he didn't want to touch him. Langsford sure wasn't alive when I got there. His helmet had been split open and his brains were seeping out of a deep wound in his left temple."